


and darlin', you'll be gone in the morning

by philthestone



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, broken laughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wonders, staring up at the cracked ceiling of her (his) cabin, whether or not her twelve year old self would have ever imagined her to at some point in the future land herself in a situation where she is lying naked in an (ex?) smuggler’s cabin while escaping the wrath of the Galactic Empire, stranded in space with no light speed, a disturbingly perceptive wookiee and a droid whose only function seems to be worrying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and darlin', you'll be gone in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS A DISCLAIMER  
> Bespin fic. Reviews are Han not getting frozen in carbonite!  
> *broken laughter*

Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.

It is a strange thing that before this exact moment, she has never fully understood what “no light speed” means. The idea itself is ludicrous; something that may only happen to your sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s father in a distant part of the galaxy and somehow involve Imperial spies.

“No light speed” does not happen to normal people.

That being said, they are anything but normal.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She attempts to help around the ship as much as she possibly can, putting to good use her small size when reaching into cramped, dusty crevices in the Falcon’s inner belly and tugging meticulously at wiring, Threepio’s anxious drone in the background punctuated by increasingly sarcastic remarks from Han, who is instructing her in what, precisely, she is tugging at, from somewhere to her left. She tries to focus on his voice and ignore the droid, except focusing on his voice turns out to be a bad idea because his voice is inexplicably distracting, in the worst (best?) possible way. She burns her finger on a loose wire and curses under her breath, but doesn’t say anything because she was _not_ just distracted by Han Solo’s voice.

She _wasn’t._

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She is not quite sure when all three of them realized that wearing a thermal white snowsuit for more than two standard days could possibly be _anything_ but comfortable, and the resulting silence was less awkward than she might have expected two months before.

“I’ve got some spare stuff,” Han offers, rubbing his free hand on the back of his neck and determinedly not looking at Chewie.

She tries valiantly not to blush, but there is something decidedly intimate about wearing someone else’s clothing.

“Thank you, Captain,” she manages coolly (she means it warmly, she thinks desperately as the words are forced out, warmly and caringly and _please don’t take this badly but I just can’t_ –), and tries to ignore how his face falls imperceptibly.

(Key word being imperceptibly.)

Later, she tugs awkwardly at the linen shirt that falls well past her thighs and has to be rolled up multiple times at the wrists, looks at herself in the cracked mirror of the ‘fresher, and can’t help but giggle, only barely audible – she looks absolutely _ridiculous_.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She wakes up from her dream-which-is-finally-not-a-nightmare sweaty and hot and breathing hard.

There are hairs sticking to the back of her neck and she can practically feel her cheeks glowing and her lower abdomen feels like it has been injected with butterflies, and she remembers what the dream was about.

She groans.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She learns that he used to have a little sister as they lay companionably on the main bunk in her (his) cabin and stare at the cracked ceiling of the cabin, swapping secrets and being very conscious of the fact that their shoulders are a mere five centimeters apart.

He learns that she suffers from nightmares when he hears her helpless voice sounding from the same cabin (because he may be a scoundrel but he’s also a gentleman, and it seemed to make sense at the time to spare her the discomfort of the hard pull-out bunks in the spare cabin and Chewie’s snores). The sensible thing to do is walk away and pretend he hears nothing, but he is anything but sensible, she thinks, as she presses her tear-stained face into his bare shoulder and tries to forget the searing pain of (needles, dark cells, Death Star, Alderaan, mother, father, home, Luke, _him_ ) everything. She is wearing nothing but her underclothes and her braids are coming undone and she is absolutely _miserable_ , but she does not move and does not talk and he does not ask her to.

(She is not certain when sleeping arrangements change, or even if it is a conscious decision – only that it is infinitely, inexplicably comforting to feel a warm human presence beside her when she wakes up scared and drowning in the dark.)

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She realizes after three standard days that they are playing a game.

It’s ridiculous, she tells herself, as she smiles at him over the dashboard of the cockpit, as she blushes when he throws the word “sweetheart” over his shoulder.

(As she stares unashamedly at his ass as he leans over the circuitry board to fish out a misplaced wrench).

It’s ridiculous and pathetic and awful (exhilarating and electrifying and _happy_ ) and really, really scary.

She realizes that he is just as aware of this game as she is when she catches him looking at her one morning (though it could be afternoon, midnight, evening; she has no way of knowing or telling) as she deliberately mixes the flour and water and tries to convince him that _yes_ , I _do_ know how to cook, Han, don’t you _dare_ laugh at me.

He grins sheepishly and looks away and she feels herself flush and thinks that she has a very, very bad feeling about this.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

There is something familiar and normal about fighting (over food, over repairs, over her hair, over the ‘fresher schedule, over the scratch on the bottom left square mili-inch of a switch on the dashboard), and so they argue incessantly.

It is easier than accepting whatever it is that is happening, she thinks, as she hides in the ‘fresher (because hiding is something she both abhors and embraces) and tries to ignore Chewie’s attempts at being moderator from the other side.

(No, Chewie, she tries to say. You’re leaving.

 _He’s_ leaving.)

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

The first time he sees her with her hair all the way down, he is speechless and she blushes from head to toe and it is not because she is wearing nothing but his old shirt and didn’t realize that he was sitting on the bunk tugging at his boots when she came out of the ‘fresher and it was definitely an accident because her hair is just – well – her _hair_.

(On Alderaan, a woman’s hair was her most private, precious possession, and she feels her breath catch at the thought.)

She decides later, as his hands run through it almost reverently, that this is possibly the worst decision she has ever made in her life, except she actually feels _good_ and is it even _possible_ to fall out of love?

(It’s not, not like that, but that’s okay because she is definitely not in love.)

(She’s _not._ )

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She wonders, staring up at the cracked ceiling of her (his) cabin, whether or not her twelve year old self would have ever imagined her to at some point in the future land herself in a situation where she is lying naked in an (ex?) smuggler’s cabin while escaping the wrath of the Galactic Empire, stranded in space with no light speed, a disturbingly perceptive wookiee and a droid whose only function seems to be worrying.

She decides that it is a situation that she has never at any point in her life considered before and buries her face in the warm neck beside her and hates herself for knowing that in a couple weeks he’ll be gone.

She does not have nightmares.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She is fascinated by his hands.

She watches them twist at a stubborn dial in the circuitry bay as they lean against the wall and work, and she feels her attentiveness slip away as she is mesmerized by the skill and precision with which they dance over the complex wiring, his face focused in a sort of calm concentration that she rarely ever sees from this brash, loud, unorthodox man.

They are rough and coarse and calloused (like everything else about him, she thinks), the pads of his fingers perpetually oily and stained black with engine lubricant, but they are also gentle and firm and warm (also like everything else about him) as they cup her chin and press against her leg and brush her hair from her face.

She doesn’t start when he catches her staring, and instead points to the faded, but crooked scar running over his left knuckle and asks where he got it.

He shrugs. “Cantina fight, I think. Back when I was in the Academy.” He turns back to the wiring. “’S probably one of the reasons they kicked me out.”

“Your propensity for getting into bar fights?” she asks, realizing with a jolt that when he says “academy” he means _Imperial_ and wondering why she never knew that before.

“Among other things,” he says lightly. “The bastards.”

She assumes that her face remains unconvinced, because he adds (with that lopsided grin that makes her stomach do backflips and her chest ache and dear gods, but she has the _worst_ possible timing and it’s _all_ his fault –), “don’t worry. You should’a seen the other guy.”

She can’t help it. She smiles.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She realizes after two and a half weeks that she’s taken to swearing a lot more than she usually would, and spends an entire half a day trying to puzzle out the reason.

When he drops the hydrospanner on his toe and Chewie makes a sound that is probably a mocking laugh and he says something so ridiculously, colourfully profane that she bursts out laughing from the sheer absurdity, she knows.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She wishes that she did not feel so helpless, so used by the universe, so much like a pawn in something bigger that she can’t control because they’re stuck in a damn starship for three stupid weeks and the Rebellion could be shot for all she knows and Vader’s out there, probably wondering how else he could possibly make her life more miserable, and

(he’s _leaving_ )

she wishes that she didn’t feel so happy every time he grins at her.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She wonders, as she shrieks and ducks and stumbles into the main hold gripping the tube of fluoride paste and _can’t stop giggling_ , if it is supremely unprofessional of an Alliance Leader to be engaging in a To-The-Death toothpaste battle with an unshaven Spice smuggler in the middle of deep space as they run for their lives from an entire government that wants them dead.

Chewie sits primly at the holochess table and refuses to join in, but half a second later there is paste in his fur and he’s growling and Han lets out a noise somewhere between a yelp and a laugh as her squirt of toothpaste catches him square in the nose.

She retreats back to the cabin space and stumbles into the ‘fresher (still giggling like a teenager, but that’s okay, she thinks, because she _was_ one, barely a year ago) to grab more ammo. But their stock of toothpaste, while still abundant in the cargo hold, packaged and stamped and ready-for-the-Alliance-to-use, is woefully gone in the ‘fresher, so she reaches for the shaving cream bottle instead.

When Han grabs her from behind, she turns and reaches out and smears the streak of toothpaste on his collarbone (shirt long discarded due to an abundance of sticky fluoride marring its aerodynamic proficiency), giggling still.

“You’ve got toothpaste in your hair, your Worship,” he tells her with a crooked grin (bastard, she thinks, _you_ put it there) and leans in.

“You’re taller than me,” she complains. “You’ve got an unfair advantage.”

“You were about to steal my shaving cream.”

“I needed more ammo!”

“And I need my shaving cream, sweethea – mmnf.”

She breaks the kiss and grins at him, expecting a smartass remark, but instead –

He’s just. _Looking_ at her.

She blushes, unsure why, but there is an intensity and sincerity and –

(Vulnerability in his eyes.)

She feels her gut clench.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

She finally establishes a connection with the Alliance base and Wes Janson answers the comm and for Kest’s sake, Wes, what in nine hells are you doing answering Mon Mothma’s personal calls?

“I was cleaning her plants,” he offers lamely over the static-y connection, and she tries to be stern, but the sound of his voice is such a relief that it’s impossible.

“I’ve been trying to establish a connection for ages,” she tries again. “Is Mon there?”

“Nah, she’ll be back in a bit. You alright up there, Leia? What happened to you guys?”

“Imperials,” she says.

Among other things.

“Well, shit,” says Janson, and she rolls her eyes, slightly.

“The hyperdrive’s broken,” she tells him, determined for her call to be of use. “We’re making our way to a colony called Bespin to get repairs.”

“How’s Han?” he asks, instead of properly replying.

She pauses.

(Blushes, as she remembers her fingers in his hair and the soft press of the bed and –)

“Leia? Hello?”

“He – Han’s fine. All fine.”

(The way he had _looked_ at her –)

“You guys heard anything from Luke?” asks Wes, and she hears his voice waver slightly.

Her heart freezes.

“What do you mean?”

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

It is the first time in nearly three weeks that she’s had trouble sleeping, and she presses her face into the pillow in front of her and squeezes her eyes tighter and somewhere, vague in her frantic, dream-ridden mind, a voice says something about opening her eyes, and it’s dark and there’s smoke and _Luke, where’s Luke_ , and the black, mechanical hand is gripping her shoulder and everything is _all wrong_ and –

“Leia – Leia, kriff, you’re shaking – c’mon sweetheart, it’s just a dream. Hey, hey, open your eyes princess.”

It’s _all wrong._

“Han ...?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m here, it’s – ‘s fine, I got you. ‘M not goin’ anywhere.”

She looks up at him from her spot on the bunk, and his eyes are tired and worried and his hand is warm on her shoulder, and she can feel her trembling hands under the blanket.

“But you are,” she whispers.

He tenses.

***

(Ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks.)

It takes them ten minutes, forty five hours, and three standard weeks to arrive, and for a beautiful city in the heavens, it is abnormally like hell.

She won’t cry.

She refuses to do so. Refuses to give in. Refuses to break.

Refuses to look away as they grab his arms and wrench him from her and for a moment, she sees the blinding panic in his eyes – and her world, already unsteady under her feet, crumbles completely, every piece meticulously fitted back in after the destruction of her home just – _gone_.

She realizes, as the platform is lowered, as he holds her gaze unflinchingly, as she ignores the dark monster standing on the other side of the room because if she doesn’t she swears to all the gods that she _will_ kill him with her own bare hands – she realizes.

And she tells him.

(She remembers the feeling of her hand in his and his crooked grin and the way he had laughed aloud when Luke beat her at _sabacc_ for the first time, the green in his eyes and the angry set of his lips when she had accused him of not caring and the way his mouth moved against her throat, remembers the look in his eyes when she’d said it – said, “and you’ll be as good as gone, won’t you?” – Because that was the answer to the question, “what are you afraid of?”

And she will not, _will not_ be broken.)

The shadows on his face make it look like he’s about to cry.

“I know.”


End file.
